ok that fudge factory is not the 2nd best thing to see in Missouri... I grew up there, and it isn't the most tourist friendly place, but come on. The Arch, the Capitol building, the Lake of the Ozarks, and the museum for Scott Joplin and ragtime music would all trump the fudge factory :)
Thanks for sharing yor perspective on the American highway. You're right, it IS and will be a cultural shift to get people to even imagine a world where cars are not the priority but we're getting there, slowly but surely.
This past Tuesday, I attended a lecture given by the President of the ACLU, Deborah N. Archer, where she read from her new book "Dividing Lines" which talks about racism in transportation. Check it out.
"What we’re living with isn’t capitalism left to its own devices—it’s capitalism filtered through a century of government policy that mandated car culture."
I mean... for the record, part of the way some people (including myself) define capitalism has to do with the way it incorporates the state and the government into its apparatus. Capitalism created the interstates just as much as the interstates shaped capitalism. The vast majority of the stress and the wear and tear on our highways can be attributed to over-burdened semitrucks that have been more and more deregulated.
Just as the government created car culture when it was under the influence of corporate capture, a government for and by the people could create a nation at a human scale - one where Grand Central has bathrooms as pristine as Bucees.
What you’re describing is cronyism. Capitalism is a system of free markets grounded in property rights. In that sense, the interstate system—which expropriated private property via eminent domain and created a subsidized alternative transportation system that undermined private rail and freight—was an anti-capitalistic project.
ok that fudge factory is not the 2nd best thing to see in Missouri... I grew up there, and it isn't the most tourist friendly place, but come on. The Arch, the Capitol building, the Lake of the Ozarks, and the museum for Scott Joplin and ragtime music would all trump the fudge factory :)
so in other words, glad you didn't make that detour at least ;)
Haha! I think they knew what they were doing with their advertising. 💩
Thanks for sharing yor perspective on the American highway. You're right, it IS and will be a cultural shift to get people to even imagine a world where cars are not the priority but we're getting there, slowly but surely.
This past Tuesday, I attended a lecture given by the President of the ACLU, Deborah N. Archer, where she read from her new book "Dividing Lines" which talks about racism in transportation. Check it out.
Cheers!
Thanks for the comment and the book recommendation. I'll check it out.
"What we’re living with isn’t capitalism left to its own devices—it’s capitalism filtered through a century of government policy that mandated car culture."
I mean... for the record, part of the way some people (including myself) define capitalism has to do with the way it incorporates the state and the government into its apparatus. Capitalism created the interstates just as much as the interstates shaped capitalism. The vast majority of the stress and the wear and tear on our highways can be attributed to over-burdened semitrucks that have been more and more deregulated.
Just as the government created car culture when it was under the influence of corporate capture, a government for and by the people could create a nation at a human scale - one where Grand Central has bathrooms as pristine as Bucees.
What you’re describing is cronyism. Capitalism is a system of free markets grounded in property rights. In that sense, the interstate system—which expropriated private property via eminent domain and created a subsidized alternative transportation system that undermined private rail and freight—was an anti-capitalistic project.